A Scandal By Any Other Name-Chapter 130 - Hundred And Thirty

The silence stretched out a bit.

Before Rowan could even find the words to respond to Aunt Margery’s brilliant deduction, another voice broke the silence.

Ines spoke up.

The Duchess of Carleton sat comfortably on the velvet sofa. She reached up and marked her page in her newly signed romance novel, closing the heavy leather cover and resting it gently on her lap. Her hazel eyes were completely serious.

"Well," Ines said, her voice clear and steady. "Your intended bride warned me about it."

Rowan’s head snapped toward his sister. His eyes widened even further. He had barely processed that his aunt knew about the trap, and now his sister was confessing her own secrets.

"Celine?" Rowan asked, his voice rough with disbelief. "Celine warned you?"

Ines nodded her head slowly. She smoothed the dark red fabric of her day dress, remembering the terrified look in the young girl’s eyes on the stone terrace just hours ago.

"Yes," Ines confirmed. "Just before they entered the carriage to leave. She hugged me, and when Lady Farrington was distracted, she whispered in my ear. She begged me to tell you not to sign anything."

Ines looked directly at her brother, her expression softening with genuine sympathy for the trapped debutante.

"I did not know what she meant at the time," Ines continued. "I was about to confront you about it after your talk with Carcel in the study. But now, it all makes perfect sense. She knows her family is trapping you, and she risked her mother’s wrath to try and stop it."

Rowan blinked. He processed the information slowly. Lady Celine Farrington, a girl who seemed afraid of her own shadow, a girl who jumped when her mother spoke, had actually tried to save him. She had tried to warn him away from the very contract that would secure her own future as a Duchess.

Rowan turned his head. He looked across the sunlit room at Delaney.

Delaney was sitting in the armchair near the tall window. She looked back at him, completely mirroring his expression. Her hazel eyes were wide with a mixture of shock and profound sadness. They shared a long, silent conversation across the space. Delaney remembered the quiet, lonely conversation she had shared with Celine on the croquet lawn. She remembered holding the girl’s hand. Celine was not a greedy, ambitious woman. Celine was a prisoner.

From her comfortable seat by the fireplace, Aunt Margery let out a heavy, knowing sigh.

Aunt Margery spoke, drawing the attention of the entire room back to her.

"It does not surprise me that the poor girl tried to warn you," Aunt Margery said softly. She reached down and gently scratched Fifi the poodle behind the ears. "Lady Celine is not wicked. She is simply terrified. And she has every reason to be."

Carcel, who had been standing quietly beside his wife, crossed his strong arms over his chest. "What do you mean, Aunt Margery? What did you find in your investigation?"

Aunt Margery adjusted her spectacles on her nose. She sat up a little straighter, preparing to deliver the gossip that she had carefully gathered from the elite drawing rooms of London.

"Lady Celine’s stay in France wasn’t for education, or to finish her manners, or anything related to that," Aunt Margery announced. Her voice carried the weight of absolute certainty.

Everyone in the room now turned to Aunt Margery, looking entirely surprised. Sending a young lady to France or Italy for a ’finishing tour’ was a very common practice among the nobility. It was supposed to polish their international language and teach them art.

Aunt Margery shook her head, her gray curls bouncing slightly

.

"It was to avoid a scandal," Aunt Margery stated plainly. "That family is buried in them."

Rowan took a step forward. "A scandal? What kind of scandal requires a three-year exile to the continent?"

Aunt Margery continued, laying out the timeline like a master detective revealing the clues of a complex crime.

"Think about it, Rowan," she instructed, pointing her silver teaspoon at him. "She left London three years ago. It was right after her very first debut season. She was presented to the Queen, she attended three balls, and then she suddenly vanished from society entirely. The Farringtons claimed she needed to widen her education in France."

Aunt Margery let out a very unladylike snort of disbelief.

"A healthy, beautiful girl does not vanish in the middle of her first season unless someone is trying to hide her," Aunt Margery said. "Then, miraculously, she came back to London this very season. And when did she return?"

She looked around the room, making sure everyone was following her logic.

"She returned the exact same week that rumors started circulating through the Ton that I am actively looking for a wife for my nephew and miraculously, the contract you have been waiting for was suddenly available after your morning call."

Aunt Margery declared, tapping her own chest proudly. "I found it entirely too coincidental. But, at first, I brushed it off as simply eager, ambitious timing."

Aunt Margery set her delicate china teacup down onto the saucer with a soft, final clink.

"But when they came to this house," Aunt Margery said, her eyes narrowing as she remembered the previous days, "and her mother started acting that way... making demands, treating the servants poorly, acting as though she had already won the grand prize without a fight... that solidified my suspicions. A polite mother hopes for a match. A desperate, blackmailing mother demands it."

Aunt Margery leaned back against her velvet cushions.

"And so," she concluded simply, "I investigated."

The room was silent as they absorbed the sheer magnitude of the Farrington family’s deception. They were hiding a massive secret, one so terrible that they had exiled their own daughter to protect their name.

Aunt Margery’s expression softened. The sharp, calculating look faded, replaced by the gentle, wrinkled face of a woman who possessed a very kind heart.

"I just feel bad for the young lady," Aunt Margery murmured, looking down at the sleeping poodle in her lap. "She is so pale. She is so quiet. She is entirely at the receiving end of her greedy family. They are using her as a shield to cover their own sins, and as a weapon to steal from us."

Rowan felt a tight knot form in his chest. He agreed completely.

Rowan spoke. "Indeed."

He looked at his aunt. He had spent his entire life trying to protect her, thinking she was simply a sweet, elderly woman who cared only about flower arrangements and dog biscuits. He had severely underestimated her.

"But you are scary when you are serious, Aunt," Rowan admitted. A small, amazed smile finally broke through the tension on his handsome face. He shook his head in absolute wonder. "How did you do it? I have a team of solicitors in London, and they could not find a single whisper of this scandal."

Aunt Margery laughed. It was a bright, cheerful sound that instantly lightened the heavy atmosphere in the drawing room.

She replied, her eyes twinkling with pure mischief.

"My dear boy, solicitors look at boring pieces of paper and bank records," Aunt Margery explained, waving her hand dismissively. "The best place to get good, authentic gossip is during tea parties. And I happen to attend quite a lot of them."

She smiled, her serious persona completely fading away, replaced once more by the cheerful, society-loving aunt.

"You would be absolutely amazed," Aunt Margery added with a wicked little wink, "at what a Countess will confess after her second cup of sherry and a compliment on her new hat."